


God Fixation

by Kdin



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Baby Mutants, Bioterrorism, Disturbing Themes, Divorce happened but differently, Drug Abuse, Grief/Mourning, Infection, M/M, Minor Character Death, POV Alternating, Takes place after events of First Class
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 16:57:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2436092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kdin/pseuds/Kdin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>

 It's year 2021, Biological Weapons were clandestinely approved by Japan's government to wipe mutants off a whole nation and later, the world. The number of ill persons with similar symptoms gets larger every hour, and every hour mutants die. The riots begin worldwide as people are forced to see their loved ones slowly die from a degenerating disease.<br/>
Mutants must unite; X-Men and Brotherhood desperately together to find a cure with little to no help from the governmental figures. Then, the first case of reawakening comes about.<br/>
<br/>
And the end begins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Got a Scar Where All My Urges Bled

**Author's Note:**

> Some canonical facts from the universe were altered for plot purposes.  
> Please be patient with this work and enjoy!

January 12th, 2021.  
Kitashirakawa Shibusecho  
Sakyo Ward, Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan.  
  
She was aware she was dreaming but she couldn’t open her eyes. The images ran ferociously against her own will and the grunting from all those people, strangers she’d never meet, was grievous. And then a chanting surged, a unison shouting from those who were angry. It was like being standing there amongst them but there eyes were merely a window. A multitude was standing on the streets, holding signs with red letters on them.  
  
__Recognize biological weapons_          _No more deaths__ _This is GENOCIDE_ _  
_

They all wore surgical masks so their voices came out muffled but yet, strong. A young lady was on the ground, begging to tears to a police officer so he would stop beating her. The images blurred on her mind until she was looking at something different. A large lounge filled with agonizing people in solitary confinement. Their suffering was almost tangible and maybe transmissible between each other. She could see a blonde woman, her eyes were surrounded by shed blood, there were scabs on other sections of her face and she couldn’t stop her from bringing up.  
  
The imaginings surged fast and twisting to the point where she felt physically sick. In different parts of the globe, she saw, the same events were the only thing to be heard of. Only that social riots worked more violently in some places. Buildings on fire, stores being looted, gunshots. No matter where they were taking place, all involved the death of those who weren’t meant to die.   
  
__our people are dying_     _Save us _bio attack against mutants___  
  
A flashing image of a group of youth disappeared before her earlier, but she could notice how they covered their mouths and noses with black bandanas and a bold, white X painted on them.  
  
A young man couldn’t hold back his tears as a medic wearing a biohazard suit grabbed his face, turning it slightly to one side, observing a bright red patch in the whites of his eye due to burst blood vessels. The skin on his neck was completely gone, his flesh was exposed like a scorching stinging that never ceased.  
  
There was table outside the metro station with numerous piled surgical masks and a sign that read _Please take one mask home per day!_ And _Wash hands before masking._  
  
Two suited men were arguing on a televised show, she could see it through her kitchen’s small TV. “The virus only affects people with determined characteristics because it identifies the genetic variations of the DNA. It was planned that way, and the entire mutant population is the target.”  
  
“Professor, what are your theories to actually confirm this to us?”  
  
They were taking those already infected against their will from the public hospitals to test experimental drugs and find a cure. They rolled his gurney to another room, he lost consciousness at his best moments, but when he opened his eyes he realized they had strapped him down which could only mean that a further torture was waiting for him.  
  
_DON’T KILL ME!_  
  
Even when his mutation allowed his body to transform entirely into organic steel he could feel his insides tearing apart, his system losing stability.  
  
_WE ARE NOT THE DANGEROUS ONES_  
  
He was shifting from flesh and bone to pure metal and it felt like burning. The drugs made no effect but to increase his resolve to die.  
  
THE VIRUS HAS BECOME AIRBORNE  
  
“Yukio!” Consciousness swatted her with an immense relief, her sheets were covered in her cold sweat. Her sister, Mariko, looked at her with concern in her eyes and the only thing she could do is pull Yukio to an embrace, to which she didn’t respond only after a while, after swallowing the bitter descriptions of the future like a pill.  
  
November 21st, 2021.  
Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.  
Greymalkin Ln, Westchester County  
1407  
North Salem, NY.  
  
_“It’s been two months since the first case was registered in Japan. Today we have thirty seven confirmed cases in our nation. Eleven of them are deceased. The illness is reproducing at an alarming pace and we have no news of a vaccine yet. But we know that this has happened before. When the vaccine is developed successfully, if it ever is, only one sector of society will be able to obtain it."_ The sound of the television was lulling, the volume just as loud enough to be heard. It was the five in the morning news broadcasting; it was still dark outside and Raven was all by herself, sitting on the floor and hugging her legs to her body, wishing that she could conceive sleep.   
  
_"Everyone is ignoring a crucial fact here_ ," The woman's voice had gone louder, the way it happens when you desperately want to be heard in a conversation. _"Only the mutant race is dying,"  
_  
_"We cannot be certain about that, the statistics have not proved a majority in registered mutant cases, only with the correct percentages will we be able to say that information and until…"_  
  
She knew.  
  
She knew that living as a minority had never been easy.  
That she had the support of her friends and brother.  
She knew that mutants were going to die.  
  
November, 30th 2021.  
Brewster Metro-North Station  
9 Main Street  
Brewster, NY, 10509  
  
It was mandatory to wear surgical masks, they would throw one at you with panic wide eyes if you didn't have one. The station was almost uninhabited. Only a few men who were evidently on his way to work were there, wearing their tidy black suits and carrying their portfolios. Charles felt vulnerable and exposed.

As he stood waiting for the train he wiped his hands on his pants and tried to breathe normally. Then swallowed his fears and continued to board the wagon.  
  
Everyone had sat far from everybody else in a four meter radius, at least. Charles looked around, everyone avoided eye-contact even in the most obvious manners. He didn’t dare to read their minds, he bit his bottom lip and decided there was no looking back. He buttoned up his jacket and sat down on the window side.   
  
The kids at the Institute had looked at Charles with pure concern in their eyes when they asked where he was going that day. Only a child could have that impact on him; yes, they gave him courage but they also made him wonder if he would be able to protect them all.  
  
He had been working with Hank, making exhaustive research about the virus as soon as they heard about it and only a few days ago had Alex showed symptoms of the diseased, nosebleeds, nausea, high fevers… and the children and others knew he was infected even before Charles. It was startling, he could admit that but he made sure to keep everyone under the line, and it was exhausting to project quietude and serenity into other minds when he couldn’t even feel it in his. 

Alex was put in an isolated room where Hank would treat him and give him support, it felt like an inner surging responsibility, to look after fellow mutants no matter what.

 _“What are you going to do?” Raven had closed the door behind her, she had a way of yelling while whispering, like a small courtesy._  
  
“I’ll convince them,” Charles rubbed the nape of his neck, “I can’t waste any more time.”  
  
“I want to go.”   
  
“I know.” Silence built like a concrete wall between them, Raven knew that he wouldn’t let her; but it wasn’t about him anymore, it was about the fact that she could decide if she wanted to help and not Charles.  
  
“Listen, I wished you could help me, I’d really like you to come.”  
  
“I will!”  
  
“They need you.” Charles lowered his voice and stepped forward to her. “They’re scared.” Raven pursed her lips and exhaled noisily. “Please be there for them.”

Charles had promised that he would be back the day after but he wished he had never left. He shut his swollen eyes in the hopes that they would hurt less. Silence at last, no more strange voices, just the noise of the train breaking the wind. He didn't realise the moment in which he began to have nightmares; in them he saw Erik. The last time he had been with him they were under open attack with dozens of missiles aiming at them in a beach in Cuba. Now the uncontrolled imaginings in his head showed him locked up in a glass room, kicking and punching the walls out of agony, his eyes shedding blood like tears.  
  
He snapped out of it when the female voice announced the next station; _MacPherson Square._ Suddenly he felt like what he was going to do was utterly stupid; his powers had boundaries, too but he had never reached them, not exactly. During his youth he had explored what he was capable of but mostly he learned to block everything, to build walls tall and thick enough in his mind so that it could only be himself there.

The magnificent white building looked bigger than the photographs. He stood before the gates gathering resolve for a moment. Something inside felt like building up, like tiny blocks forming a tall tower.   
  
"May I help you, sir?" Charles didn’t bother to look at him until the security guard had grabbed his elbow in a tight grip that bothered him greatly.  
  
Charles lifted two fingers to his temple, "Yes, go home to your kids."  
  
The man let go off him and walked in a straight line away from The White House. Charles filled his lungs, and kept his fingers pressed there as he approached the gateways.   
  
"Let me in," he whispered to the gate-guards and they did so. He began grasping the minds of those ones who were around him. Walking with determination he got to the Reception Room until a line of guards running towards him made him stop. He held their minds all at once and they stopped sharp before they reached him but more and more kept coming, circling around him with their heavy guns arbitrarily pointing at him.   
  
As every single one of them paralyzed mid-action he could hear their hushed voices screeching with downright fear, _whatthefuckisgoingon jesusicantmove hesamutanthesgoingtokillus_ _godhelpmehavemercy,_ Charles was barely able to hold them all at once. He closed his eyes for two seconds to be able to shut them down into blackout. One by one, they fell like toy soldiers to the ground. Charles hoped that no guns went off accidentally and they didn't, but he felt a strike on the back of his head all the same.  
  
Brotherhood of Bayville Boarding House  
57 Bayville Ave  
Bayville, NY 11709  
  
_Open your eyes, Charlie._ His mother’s crumbled voice was calling him, but she never had such a sweet tone, it used to be filled with resent. _Don’t be afraid._  
  
His eyelids opened as heavily as they were and his head ached terribly, he was thankful that the world welcomed him back with darkness not to upset him. His hand moved like a reflex to where the pain was coming from, on the back of his head his fingers traced his dried blood over recently-done stitches.  
  
“Leave it.”  
  
Charles lifted his head to find the owner of the toneless voice and sat up keeping his eyes fixed on him. “Erik…”  
  
“I did the work, should be fine.” He looked exhausted, his eyes had lost the determination and focus they used to have. He used to be heated about something all the time but not anymore.  
  
“What happened there?”  
  
“Are you still refusing to read my mind?” Charles restricted himself from saying anything, he just rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. Erik stood up to hand him a glass of water. “Raven told me you were going, we got there a little too late.”  
  
“Could have been worse, I guess.”  
  
“A guard almost fractured your skull, Charles.”   
  
Charles scoffed lightly before drinking large sips of the cold liquid that seemed to wash down the unpleasant taste he held. He felt useless, he had got high hopes of what he could be able to do and had been aggressively broken down to the ground. “Do you think I could try again?”  
  
“I think you’re banned from The White House.” The edge of Charles’ lips curved a little in a distressful smile. “We all are.” Rain came down rougher with loud thunderstruck and bright lightning that once in a while illuminated the room. “You were unconscious and had about thirty guns pointing at you.”

Charles meditated it, he could barely imagine it all; he placed the glass on the small night table next to the bed. He had been knocked out all day and the only thing he desired to do was lie down again and lose himself in dreamless sleep. 

All that bad history and he still trusted in Erik, he didn’t need to question it; for some reason, when he was close to him he could feel an urge of crumbling at his feet at last, knowing that he would be safe.  
  
“I was in his mind.”  
  
“What?”   
  
“I was in his mind when,” Charles wanted to look in his eyes when he told him but he wasn’t able. “When you killed Shaw.” He needed to hold onto something, even the memory of it was genuine. “I felt it, his pain and his agony. _I felt like dying_.” He bit his tongue and shifted his position until he was holding his knees close to his chest _; there are some things better left unknown_. “I don’t want to roam around inside your mind again.”  
  
Erik wouldn’t say anything. _What could he say anyway?_ No apologise would mirror his real grief. He remembered that time when they were friends, (and it made him wonder if they still were, old friends, companions) when Charles pulled a treasured memory from an abandoned corner in his mind, and Erik could tell how comforting it was for Charles to be there with him, he projected it. An intangible place where both of them fitted to be together and unharmed. But there was no such thing in reality.  
  
That rock had sunk quickly. The reason why getting inside his head was hurting laid answer in the moment in which Erik saw into Sebastian’s eyes and malformed any bit of mercy he had and decided to give him a torment as massive as his own misery, Charles ached now and regretted how cruel he had been to tell him that. His words had come out like he was talking to a monster.  
  
Erik wasn’t a monster.  
  
Not to Charles.  
  
“Thank you.” Erik had remained with his head lowered until he heard Charles’ gentle tone again. “For taking me out of there.” The only response was a slight nod, more expressed by a blink than anything.

There was a faint knocking on the door, like tiny, insisting fists. Erik rose from the chair he had been sitting with no more than a weary sigh. Before actually getting there, he waved a hand at the doorknob and twisted it open. That way he let Charles know that he didn’t want any of the other mutants running up to him in that state; both of them felt like shit anyway.

 _“I told you to go to bed.”_  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
A vibration announced the arrival of a text message in Charles’ phone; he reached in his pants’ pocket and withdrew the small black device and flipped it open.  
  
_@ Oscorp Ind_  
_Moira’s with the kids_  
_Hope everything went ok.                                                                  9:11pm_  
  
“Raven…” he mouthed to the blue glowing letters.  
  
He looked up to find Erik carrying a small redhead girl whispering loudly to him: "He's the telepath, right?”  
  
Charles beamed out of nowhere and nodded once closing his phone but failing to forget about the message; the girl timidly covered her smile with a tiny hand in reply. He swung his legs to the side of the mattress and the sudden change in his position made his skull reminiscence its concussion and he did his best to ignore the nausea twisting his stomach.  
  
“Her name is Jean.” Erik walked towards the bed and when she was close enough, she jumped out of his arms into Charles’ lap.  
  
_(Nice to meet you, Jean Grey. My name is Charles.)_  
  
Her giggles were high-pitched and maybe too loud but she accomplished to make his smile go wider.  
  
_(Nice to meat you two, Charles Xavier.)_ Even inside her mind her words clearly belonged to a three year old.  
  
“Well done there,” He looked out of the corner of his eye at Erik, his arms crossed over his chest. “Why don’t you listen to him and go to bed? It’s late.” Charles booped her freckled nose before lifting her back to Erik's arms.  
  
“ _Okaaaay!_ ” He walked her to the door, holding her on arm and gesturing at the door to open with the other. “Professor?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Do not be afraid. It’s going to be fine.”  
  
Charles was sure he wasn’t projecting; always, when he saw child’s sincere joy he held onto it so he could mirror it back. Jean had gone inside, and her intrusion had not been perceptible.  
  
“All right. Thanks ever so.”  
  
Oscorp Industries  
786 Woodycrest Ave  
Bronx, NY 10452

It took her forty minutes or so until a security guard entered the smallest restroom located in the reception, then she proceeded to punch him unconscious and borrow some of his stuff. It was not the first time she tied someone up while they drooled on the floor and surely, not the last. Her skin shifted into blue scales and then back into human skin but she immediately felt altered; her legs were shorter and her hands too clumsy _. I could have got my hands on someone less chaotic but here we are._  
  
The gun in her belt banged slightly against her thigh with every step she took and the surgical mask made it difficult to breathe. She dug her hand in the front pocket of the blue, nicely-ironed shirt looking for the man’s ID.  
  
“ _Bert!_ ” She heard a muffled voice from behind and quickly checked the name in the plastic card she held. Albert Sanders, and it was her stolen identity looking back at her in the little photograph.  
  
“Yeah?” Her head turned to find a blond young man; maybe twenty years old.  
  
“Did you heard about the infected mutants they hold in the BioLab?”  
  
"What?" A beat was missed in her ribcage, “Oh…”   
  
“Yeah. These capitalistic assholes don’t pay us enough for this shit.”  
  
“I know,” she croaked. “See you later, ‘kay?” She turned away and walked with long strides to the glass elevator and pressed the ID's barcode against the scanner. A beep and a green light illuminated the up arrow. The building was almost entirely made of glass; a very intense fluorescent lighting isolated them all from the darkness of a moonless night.  
  
Another beep and the doors opened before her, she got in with a swift movement and hurried to press and hold the button with the horizontal arrows pointing at each other until the doors were closed again.  
  
There were fifteen floors left to go. She wiped her forehead and leaned against one of the walls, deliberating what her next move would be. A flat screen caught her attention. _This company is for sure pretentious. Who the hell installs televisions inside elevators?  
  
_ The first thing to appear was the Industries’ logo: silver, round-edged letters that read O S C O R P with smaller INDUSTRIES underneath, rounded by a colourful, litmus ring. The video started with smooth music, like those of alcoholism rehabilitation centres used in their commercials. A boy in the beach, a blonde lady running, the driving wheels of a train and a soft female voice talking: _Progress. Nature to man. Man to Machine. The path to our future._  
  
A ringing brought her attention away from the video, it was her phone with her brother’s number on the screen. She stared at it asking herself repeatedly if she should answer, it might be something important, Charles had just adventured himself in an almost suicidal mission.  
  
But so had she.   
She hung up and turned the device off. At last she had reached the top floor, where she would meet with Norman Osborn, gun in hand. The crystal doors slid open and she stepped out with determination growing inside her along with adrenaline.  
  
_Oscorp Industries. We make tomorrow possible, today._  
  
Brotherhood of Bayville Boarding House  
57 Bayville Ave  
Bayville, NY 11709  
  
He got to see Angel again and some indescribable feeling balled up in his throat. She greeted him with a fearful voice, her face was painted with red brushstrokes, simulating the blood shower that awaited the mutant race; she had attended a demonstration, there were several every day and in different locations and in each one of them people died or were killed. But it was good to see her again.  
  
“Let us do it together, Charles.” Erik demanded as they stood in the porch. The downpour had become a drizzle and Charles’ bones felt the cold air in some sort of aching in its very core; he still held his phone in a tight fist due to his frustration of his sister hanging up on him.

"If you're willing to help, yes." He ran his fingers through his hair trying to settle down. "Where is Azazel?" The man who had seen in Moira’s memories, he had caused a great impression on him, every time he heard about variety in mutations his heart used to race. Now he could sense his dreams dying at a slow pace.  
  
"He got infected," Erik made a pause and Charles looked up at him. There was sorrow in his eyes, the most common thing he could pick out of him, but it still hurt him.  
  
"I’m sorry." The virus had consumed his flesh bit by bit and every second of excruciating pain had been unbearable. He had left the boarding house and gone to die to a health unite nearby. 

“So am I.” There were only two rooms with the lights on inside, then it became only one. "He left his son with us and asked me to look after him,” Erik turned his head as if doing that let him know that Kurt was well. “And soon after that more children were abandoned at our doors.” 

Charles mentally scanned the house behind them, he could feel those little peaceful spheres that were dreaming. _William,_ six years old was lost in an atmosphere filled with colours and stars; _Thomas,_ was running in an open field with his bare feet; _Jean_ had finally doze off into a pool of cotton candy.                                                                                                                         

“He can help us.” Charles nodded. Kurt Wagner, Azazel’s fourteen year old son, lied awake in his bedroom, his blue skin was also painted with aggressive red brushstrokes. 

( _We will look after him,)_ Erik felt the intrusion as startling but eventually almost comforting. _(and we will come out of this together.)_

¨¨

Oscorp Industries

786 Woodycrest Ave  
Bronx, NY 10452 

As the dark blue smoke dissipated in the air the click of several guns took over the building. A male voice yelled at them: _FREEZE!_ And then it was all silence.                                                                                                                     

“That escalated quickly,” said Kurt, still holding Erik’s and Charles’ hands and wiggling his long tail behind him.                                                                                                                    

 _(Don’t do anything.)_ Charles rose his voice in Erik’s mind, he knew he was about to lift their guns and point them back _. (Just let me talk to them. This Industries most likely hold mutant population and probably are already working in a cure.)_ In response, Erik frowned at him but let go of his hands.

“One false move and we’ll open fire!”                                           

So that was what Charles had missed at The White House; he didn’t know if he could manipulate them all anymore and even when he considered that the three of them held high possibilities to defeat the guards it was not an option. Not that day, not with Raven out of their sights and with Kurt just as exposed as them.

“We want to talk to Norman.” Charles begun, making sure his voice echoed in the glass walls.                                                                                             

“There is no need of blood getting spilled tonight.” Erik continued. “You stand no chance against us.” He paused to hold onto Charles’ hand again, their weapons raised against their shoulders in fear. Kurt completed the union of their hands and they disappeared into thin air once again before the bullets pierced the fume. 

¨¨

Both Raven and Norman’s heads turned violently when they landed their feet inside the CEO’s office. Her gun was pointing at the old man’s feet, as if she had started aiming at his head and after listening to what he had to say she had ended up lowering eventually, which was a good sign.   

Norman exhaled aloud, he pinched the bridge of his nose while the rest stood silent. Charles reached his temple with his fingers and stood looking into his tired eyes, who stared right back with patience. 

There was a long pause, long enough for Erik to wonder if there was any actual way to get a cure in time. He turned his hands into fists. 

Charles let out a breath he had been holding; he shot a glare at Raven and she proceeded to drop her gun. “Show us.”                                  

Norman pressed down a silver button on top of his desk. “You can rest,” he said into the speaker. “Put your guns down and continue normally.”                                                                                                         

¨¨                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

The man walked with a limp but no cane, his feet dragged across the clearest floors and the rest followed him inside the laboratories area. The white halls transmitted a feeling like haziness that wasn’t easy to get rid of.

Charles turned, noticing the way Kurt tightened up at the sight of a metallic door with a huge sign on it.

CAUTION — BIOLOGICAL HAZARD

ADMITANCE TO UW AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

                                                                                                                             

He nodded his head at them on approval, whatever he had seen, Erik thought, they would have to trust on, as Norman dialled the password to open the door.

Osborn didn’t bother to wear the surgical mask and neither did the four of them. 

"As I was telling the lady here,” he led the way into narrow, salubrious corridors; Raven was not sure if her brother had manipulated the CEO into actually _touring_ them or if he was doing it at will, but everything was going better than expected so far. “The US government immediately forbid us to work on a vaccine or study the virus by any means,” They stopped outside a small room with large glass windows that allowed a fitting view of what the scientists were doing. “We signed the agreement under a dead threat.”  They wore biohazard suits and didn’t mind them as they observed through the glass. A bunch of them were sitting in front of microscopes, twisting and changing the lenses while making annotations.  “We carried on and worked under the table.”

Their silence was overwhelming but mostly, _upsetting_. Erik felt himself being overpowered by anxiety; there was something wrong.

He knew that Charles and Hank had been working for their part, Raven had told him; they could have had agreed on working with Oscorp Industries already, it was the logical thing to do. He forced himself to stay calm and trust in Charles when all he wanted were answers and an immediate way out after. He realized then, it had stopped being about _him_ after the lives of those children were in his hands.

Norman kept walking, after a loud sigh, like if he had been defeated, he said “We extracted a boy with the disease from a health centre,” An automatic door slid open revealing another test centre, this time larger and shaped like a circle. There were at least ten people inside with their high-security suits on and a boy, out of his mind, struggling against the metallic restraining that strapped him down to an acrylic table. “After experimenting on him we forced the virus to evolve to its conditions.”

 Kurt turned his head and walked away so he didn’t have to look at the boy, he was physically unable to do it. A gasp escaped from Raven’s lungs before she covered her mouth with both hands; he was shuddering violently to the point where his restrained wrists had slid open and yet it wasn’t the only place he was bleeding from. His flesh was exposed in different sections of his bare body, it had a dark, putrid colour.

"The virus mutated.”

The inhuman blaring of the boy pierced the glass of the workroom that held him and landed outside for all of them to listen. Charles turned and found Erik clenching his jaw at the sight; he ran his fingers through his hair in wholesome torment, his face expressed a pain that he wasn’t bodily experiencing, finally he turned away from Norman to his mutant companions. 

“You don’t get it!” Not even Raven had seen his brother in such an altered state before, her eyes went wide in anticipation, “I can’t sense him, _he is dead_!” 

¨¨        

It was a matter of instants, _seconds,_ and everything turned to utter shit.

The alarms went off, loud and disturbing as they were and all Norman Osborn could do was turn his head before a bullet perforated his skull, another one cracked open the crystal of the laboratory.

Erik waved a hand in a hurried movement to deflect the following bullets back to the shooters, a group of rebels, dressed in black with bandanas covering most of their faces. Some shrieked with pain, some dropped dead. He lifted the weapons in the air and reached a pistol to his open hand.

“There are riots all over the city,” After controlling and reading the rebel’s ailing minds Charles hollered, but his face conveyed more concentration than anything. The descriptions were cruel, filled with crying and fire. “Your kids are by their own, let’s go there first.”

Beyond the cracks, Raven’s eyes focused on the inside, where the infected boy lied. The noise from around dissipated like going underwater. She did not know what had happened, only that one of the medics was taking the mask of her suit off so she could vomit a throat full of dark blood properly on the nearest of her partners. Next she slammed her head against the glass until the blood covered everything.

Kurt rushed to her side and snatched her own hand.

The linking was completed short after when Erik reached his hand at Charles like that time in Cuba, only that now, Charles accepted it in a rush.

Brotherhood of Bayville Boarding House  
57 Bayville Ave  
Bayville, NY 11709

 _Gunshot. Gunshot. Gunshot._ They stood upon a crowd of violence; they had been sent by the government to kill the core of the revolution. Magneto, as he was known, leaded a movement supporting mutant rights.  
  
And mutants were powerful.  
And mutants were monsters.

The gun on Erik’s hand went off and he felt the metal bullets penetrating their bodies with ominous ease.  

Charles plopped down on the ground, crossing his legs in a sitting position. Both his hands were pressing against his head and he had to close his eyes to down-reach his breathing in an attempt to attain a larger range for his telepathy.  
The stomping of rebel's feet around him only scared him further, they ran and screamed and pushed each other but for them it was like Charles didn't exist. At some point, he was sure, it hurt him physically and he thought the trauma he had got earlier protested like that. His teeth gnashed focusing the pain in his mouth until a numbing silence fell inside him like an expanding abyss. The yelling ceased and the shushing of thoughts in the minds of everyone did, too. Charles released the air in his lungs and slowly brought his hands down; he knew he could do that as much as he wondered if he would be able to shut people's nervous systems forever just as he did for a few hours. 

Little by little, Charles opened his eyes and first thing next to him was a man’s head with a gunshot to his eye. He turned around and saw every single one of the attackers collapsed against each other on the ground.

He still distinguished Kurt, materializing into Jean’s room, she held onto him, bawling with power. _Shhh… It’s over._ He hushed her with affection. Raven and Erik were together inside the house. A four-year-old Thomas hugged her waist and Billy apologised to Erik, sticking fingers into his mouth for no reason; _we couldn't get to Jean! We could not!_

 _(Angel isn’t here.)_ Charles’ voice echoed through Erik, the adrenaline made the transgression less coarse.

 _(We have to move now.)_ He replied.

His legs took too long to respond, but Charles ran inside the house stepping and stumbling on the bodies that blocked his way.

“Please take me to the Institute, Kurt!” he shouted when he found him.

“We are not leaving you alone.” He hadn’t seen him behind, he just felt hands touching him gently but flat-out all over and taking him away. 

Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.  
Greymalkin Ln, Westchester County  
1407  
North Salem, NY. _  
_

When they arrived the Institute was on fire, and the mutated virus had already spread. The rebels had been stopped by Moira’s gun and courage and when the undead came it was still her who fought on the front. The bunker held the children securely, and there, they came together, X-Men and Brotherhood. Their hands united in a wide circle, they looked at each other and found a way out another time.

What was coming to them announced itself like a hurricane, and all they could do was stick together.

It was only fire surrounding them.

It was only fire.

And then, nothing.


	2. Dislocation

December 1st, 2021.  
Tupper Lake, NY.

The thing about materializing was, it left you blind for a couple of seconds. So it was just darkness and the sound of two gun blasts.

Kurt choked in a breath and coughed up a mouthful of blood, he saw the kid from Oscorp in himself and feared for the worst. It wasn’t painful, not at first at least. Erik had taken out the stolen gun as soon as physically possible and shot them in the head, a married couple who were defending their property with a hunting rifle.

Kurt felt the weight of the world on his shoulders then and he hated everything; he hated all the suffering he had gone through and the suffering of others that he had seen, and it wasn’t fair that after all, he would not be able to talk with Angel again, nor with the kids and nor with Erik, whom he spent his time admiring for his courage and feared as well for his authority.

His head lowered languidly, the pressure on his lungs began to spread and at some point the pain came all at once, like a punch focusing in his back. He hadn’t realize he had collapsed face first to the filthy ground until Erik was turning his body like it was made of glass. The dirt beneath his body was absorbing the blood from the injury, dirt where there would be life once more in the future, it felt warm. The pain made his vision blurry at the edges but the starry sky looked back at him with odd relief. The mourning of the children was there like a recording, far, but still there.

Mutants would be superior at the end; but they bled all the same.

Charles fell down to his knees and the only body between him and Erik was the dying boy they had promised to protect, clawing for another breath.

“I’m sorry, Kurt.” Said Erik as he failed to hold back his tears. “I’m so sorry.” He leaned in to rest his forehead on his.

“It’s Nightcralwer.” Kurt cried, turning his head into the touch of Charles’ fingers on his temple. He wanted to thank them, or to say sorry but everything that came out was that. He did not shed a tear and he felt nothing but guilty about it.  

All of sudden the overwhelming ache faded out as fast as it had come. Charles groaned in result of containing Kurt’s own hurt to dim the boy's agony. They were supposed to say goodbye, it was some kind of protocol to follow, wasn’t it? But in the moment, it felt unnatural, even when Erik thought he deserved more than silence for his last moments.

The silence disturbed by the cruel laughter of the other kids, the humans, and disturbed by his own crying in his small room every goddamn night.

Kurt let his eyes close and filled his lungs until they could hold nothing more. His yellow eyes were like none, although expected to be haunting they were tender, they apprehended the softness of the soul of a child.

He was only a kid.

Erik incorporated slowly, still looking down but a fist remained pressed against Kurt’s chest where his heart once beat.

“He’s left us,” Charles muttered into the cold air and he knew mostly because Kurt's pain was gone but it was worse than that, to be holding onto someone else until they vanished in the air, it was like falling. He reached out the hand that connected with Kurt’s mind and placed it on top of Erik’s clenching fist.

A minute passed, perhaps, until everything had frozen around them. Keeping on going was too complicated so they stayed there, linking their hands over the boy and saying goodbye to him that way.

Charles waited, his head turned a little to see behind and found everyone staring at them with grief and shock in their eyes, and before he could turn back he felt his hand sinking.

Kurt’s body muscles moved again, throwing kicks to the air and shaking violently. His eyes didn’t open. Erik got up immediately, drawing his gun from the ground back to his hand. It aimed down with cowardice at Kurt’s head, his hand trembled. Not even dead was it over. A reawakening, like the boy they had seen, meant their bodies turned into the host of a dissipating virus, the intent of a cure gone wrong. His finger hovered over the trigger, there was no time to waste; he didn’t want to see him turn into a monster.

“Don’t shoot him,” Charles breathed out, meeting Erik’s eyes for a moment before turning to Kurt’s convulsing body. He lingered his fingers where the two bullets had collided, over his liver.

Erik understood, he squatted and left the gun behind. His hand filled with blood before retrieving only one bullet from the fatal wound, the metal found its way out of his body only to go back into it. Charles tried to hold Kurt’s seizures by pinning him back down face up before nodding at Erik with hurry.

His fist tightened before opening and letting go the malformed bullet into the boy’s skull. Slowly, almost gently. It kept sinking until it hit his brain and the movements of his dead body ended.

 

_(Go inside, leave us alone.)_

The hours of late night were the coldest, the kind that made your hands and face completely numb and your exhaled breath condensate. They remained where they were for a long while after the rest left and they didn’t say anything, nor they looked at each other, although their hands did meet again.

Charles knew it was ill-mannered but he could not resist an idiotic urge of his to read Erik’s thoughts and when he did he knew how bad of an idea it had been, the distress he experienced turned him bilious. He kept it to himself but he continued to repeat in his mind that the boy deserved so much better, that life was nothing but unfair. Because Charles knew that so well. That feeling of being infuriated at the universe, of ceasing to believe in any kind of god when he was left alone in the world.

They got up at some point, the dried leaves didn’t made noise when they stepped on them as they were wet with blood. They found no car in the garage but two shovels inside. They dug a hole next to the biggest tree around, its branches were filled with orange and red toned leaves of autumn. They threw the bodies of the couple into a pond nearby, Charles was not able to think of something a bit more respectful to do with them. They hadn’t killed their boy on purpose, and they had been murdered, and all their belongings were being taken. Nevertheless, he knew Erik didn’t think the same. They were being reigned by different rules now, _you do whatever you need to survive_.

The sky began to lighten up at the horizon with soft lilac tones, Charles and Erik sat next to Kurt’s resting place for all they had left of time until the sun was higher and illuminated every corner of the place.

“It’s not your fault.” Charles heard his own voice odd after being silent for so long.

“Isn’t it?” Erik shot back, almost yelling.

Charles looked away from him, it pained him to see. Quietness fell on them again like a blanket, keeping even the sound of the birds singing imperceptible to them.

“A bullet travels faster than the speed of sound,” said Charles carefully. “You couldn’t have stopped it unless you concentred on it in the first place.”

Erik said nothing again for a few moments, the wind moving branches filled the silence, then: “We could be infected,” he turned to look at Charles.

“I know.” He replied in a whisper. They had cleaned the blood off their hands with the freezing water in the pond but their clothes were still stained with it.

Erik took a deep breath, slowly taking out the 9mm pistol from his jacket's pocket. “What now?” Charles followed Erik's eyes, locking their gazes. He didn’t know what to say but it hardly mattered if they were going to die then.

“We never had time, Erik.”

“Time for what? I got my revenge and you made your dream come true in the end.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

The noise of crunching leaves made them turn their heads. Hank approached by himself, he still wore his lab coat and Charles wondered why his glasses had spattered blood on them and why he hadn’t noticed.

“Come inside, we need to talk.” He announced simply and turned away, walking back inside the wooden house.

Charles and Erik only turned to look at each other before following him.

 

“So, the virus.” Hank started once Erik and Charles had sat down at the same dining table where the others awaited, it had a lovely lace tablecloth and a vase with lilies on the middle. “Osborn’s people mutated it, yes?”

Erik sat back, letting his breath out noisily. “Yes?”

“We don’t know much, but whoever designed it gave it the best equipment for survival.” Hank continued, raising eyebrows at anyone he made eye contact with. “An even better one that they expected. When Oscorp experimented on it trying to see its reactions they pushed the thing far enough for it to _evolve_ instead of being destroyed.”

“What you’re saying is…” Moira spoke up from opposite side of the table, her hair was pulled up in a messy ponytail. “They killed the boy but the virus took it as a host?”

“Precisely! As a matter of fact the modified virus is strong enough to actually dissolve the person’s original mutation…”

“Where are Alex and Sean, Hank?” Charles interrupted him, the ire building up on him was noticeable in his tone voice, and if you looked at him in the eyes you could tell he was too exhausted to find out himself.

As an instinctive response Hank squared his shoulders, making a pause maybe larger than he expected. “They left us.”

“When?” His voice was now louder, even when he knew he could not blame him it didn’t stop him from being enraged.

“When the first anarchists came to the Institute.” Charles put a fist over his forehead resting his elbow on the table. “I left Alex alone for a while to check on the others, then he was gone.” Raven turned to look at his brother with worry. “We couldn’t find Sean after.” There was no other choice than assuming they were dead by then, if all they had been trying, it had not been enough to protect them, Charles was proved right at the end; he was not enough. “I’m deeply sorry.”

Charles shook his head without looking at him. “Keep going.”

Hank coughed and nodded, collecting himself again. “Raven found a file when she was at Oscorp. The abducted boy had an _X-Gene overexpression_ , which manifested in claws and golden skin but if that was the same kid you saw inside the laboratories we can assume the virus has enough potential to _dissolve_ de X-Gene.”

“They become humans?” Erik raised an eyebrow with composure.

“When they die and the virus takes over, yes.”

“Then we have two viruses now?” Charles ran his fingers though his hair, he started to recover the heat on his body and all the other physical sensations: hunger, somnolence an emergent migraine. 

“Theoretically, the mutated virus is going to take over the original one in days.” Hank finally took his glasses off to clean them, unsurprised about the bloodstains in them. “In my opinion, it will be a matter of hours.”

Raven scoffed and everyone turned to look at her. “This is the end?”

“Not just yet.” Hank smiled himself, maybe due to the irony of it all. “For the virus to take over us, we’ll have to die first.”

The tension was released then, they could almost hear themselves exhaling a lungful of air each one.

“I don’t know about you guys,” Moira spoke louder, the hope just given making her a little bit braver and willing to keep going. “But _reawakening?_ Dead people coming back to life? I’m not ready for that shit, what are we supposed to do?!” Silence built up in the dining room, a ray of sunshine came through the nearest window; it was a beautiful day. “A lot of undead people are out there right now, and have you seen what they do?!”

“What do they do?” Erik called unimpressed and Charles admired Erik’s capacity to keep his calm in moments like those.

“They _eat_ other people!”

They hadn’t have time to think about anything, to actually understand how dreadful the reality actually was. They were so focused on putting the children away from the riots that they didn’t even think about ending them, much less of what the new virus was turning people into, not just screaming, mindless corpses, but a dangerous threat too. There was a pause again, Moira wanted to bang his head on the table not even as a joke.

“ _At least_ we are not infected.” Said Raven, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Yeah, so what now, Raven?” It was difficult to find Charles in such an altered, frantic state and she really despised when it happened. “We can’t stay here forever.”

“Easy, Charles.” Hank called out while taking out his mobile and throwing it across the table to him. “Check it,” he flipped it open and a grey background with the time showed up _08: 11._ The battery was dying out and he was out of service. “None of us has service,”

“They took everything down, mobile service, television, radio, _internet.”_ Raven finished explaining before her brother lost his patience.

“Martial law was declared by the President just this evening.” Moira stirred uncomfortably on her seat. "Didn't know that, did you?”

“Give them ten minutes and the country is besieged.” Erik said acerbically, tracing the inside of his arm as if it hurt.

Raven shook her head. "We've seen this crisis spread throughout the world, and this forsaken land wasn't going to be able to prevent it. The closing of frontiers was just a matter of time, but now I really have the feeling they want us to die here."

 

 

 

“Thanks for putting the kids to sleep.” Charles added as they climbed up the stairs, he remembered the house very well, he mapped out the wooden railing with his fingers.

“Sure…” Replied Raven with a lower voice. First thing they saw after climbing the stairs was a bunch of blankets and pillows with children sprawled on them in the hall, some hugging each other, some themselves. “They didn’t want to sleep alone.”

Erik spotted Jean in the arms of a young lady, her hair had purple strands and it was pulled together in an elaborated braid.

“There are three rooms in this floor, take one each, have some sleep.” Charles whispered, careful not to wake up the children. “Come, Erik.”

Downstairs, the two of them walked through a narrow hall, with every footstep Charles felt like dirtying the clear floor with a mixture of blood and mud while at the end of it Erik focused on a white rocking horse placed as an ornament, big enough for a one year old, it was painted beautifully with silver patterns on its head.

“The other two rooms are here,” The door made a squeaking noise as Charles opened it unveiling a tidy room, probably earlier destined for guests as it was unused. “They’re connected, so if you need anything just…” 

Erik nodded, pushing the door further and stepping inside. “I’ll knock.”

 

 

He couldn’t sleep, he didn’t even try.  
His muscles felt anesthetized, he swore he couldn’t feel his own touch on his skin as he removed his clothes. The bloodstains were not that visible on his black jacket, but they were there, thick and warm. He threw it on the floor, not wanting to have it close anymore and was left with a grey t-shirt he didn't remember putting on.

Listening carefully he walked across the room, he couldn’t hear any noise from Charles’ room. He waved a hand before taking his shirt off, the bathroom door swung open, the knob banging on the wall carelessly. He twisted his hand to turn on the controls, bending down and taking the rest of his clothes off, he smelled like sweat and smoke.

Erik stepped onto the stone floor beneath the shower head and let his eyes close gradually. The water felt like melting ice on his skin, returning his sensibility. His head bowed down so it could touch his neck with kindness. His fingers ran through his soaked hair and he leaned his arm on the wall afterwards, taking his time before turning his body to the side so the water fell on his right shoulder blade. Erik winced focusing on the burning pain there.

Images of the riots haunted his mind without his consent; fire, gunshots and screaming. His head turned to the right unhurriedly until his cheekbone met his shoulder, the water kept running down his back, dripping around each shape of his body and down his legs until it met the floor to travel and fall down the small drain, water tainted with red.

 

 

The sun was setting when they found themselves outside, standing next to each other and watching the children leave flowers on Kurt’s resting place as a formal good-bye, white ones, purple and pink ones, they ended up covering the dirt. A little more time of pure life to watch over his dead body.

“He had never been able to do that,” Erik said. “Materialize into places he didn’t know.”

“I projected the images for him.” Charles put his hands in his coat pockets, his jawline tightened.

“You know this place, then.”

“I do.” Charles exhaled, his powers allowed him to remember everything at will, he could hear his own childish laughter and feel the warmth of his father’s arms around him. “My father owned this place and took us here once.”

“In the middle of nowhere.” Erik momentarily turned his head to look at his expression. “Perfect for a growing telepath.”

The ghost of a smile appeared on Charles’ face. “It was the first place that came to my mind.”

Erik remembered the rocking horse at the end of the hall and thought of a father putting his baby there for the first time, careful, taking care of him if he was to fall. “Did you know the couple?”

Charles almost got lost in thought for a moment. “After my father and mother died, my stepfather kept everything and everything was a lot, probably lent it to some relatives of his.” There was one way to know for sure, but after throwing the bodies of the owners into the pond he didn’t want to find out. “I don’t know.”

Raven stood next to her brother and placed a hand on his shoulder, “Let’s go inside.” She said quietly. “It’s freezing.”

Charles nodded.

“It’s going to be a harsh winter.” Erik replied.

 

 

“It’s not much…” Moira placed a tray with numerous peanut butter sandwiches cut in small triangles on the kitchen counter, “but you know I’m no cooker.”

“It’s all right.” Raven said with a smile, turning to see Charles and Erik filling cups with water and milk. “I’m glad these persons begun to prepare for the apocalypse.” She really was, there was a formidable amount of supplies for them to use, but with so many mouths to feed they’d run out soon.

The living room had three large and old-fashioned sofas, but it sort of felt like home when Charles stepped on it and found seven kids managing to fit on them. The oldest of them, Anna Marie, only thirteen stood up and came to him with sad eyes. “Professor? Can I help with anything? I really want to…”

Charles bent down a little, trying to smile for her. “Sure, if you want. There’s food ready on the kitchen, you can help us bring it for them?” He gestured at the kids, sitting and talking without making much noise. She nodded and didn’t say anything for a moment. “What’s wrong?” He said cautiously; Anna Marie suddenly wrapped her arms around him, careful to not make skin contact, she had learned to be careful with that. Charles returned the gesture while his heart sunk.

He felt guilty in some way, Marie surely felt like she was on charge of the rest of the kids when she was not, Charles definitely had to talk to her. He took a deep breath as he realized how every minute the situation was more and more complicated.

 

“Everybody, listen” Hank stood in front of the television, in the middle of the room while the children munched on their dinner eagerly. “We’re going to stay here for a couple of weeks, all right?” Only a muffled _mmm hmm_ was heard. “Then we’re going to leave to a safer place.”

_A safer place, with a dangerous journey._

“Where are we going?” Bobby raised his hand as if he was in class.

“A company’s building.”

“Which company?” asked Clarice, she was sitting with Jean on her lap.

“Trask Industries.”

“But they _hate us_.” Kitty raised an eyebrow. “Are they letting us in?”

“Sure they are,” said Moira, leaning to grab a sandwich herself. “There we’ll be safe.”

Charles shifted in his seat on the table; that was the best option they could offer them. A bunch of hoping. They had discussed it earlier, Moira knew that with the contract signing they made with the _mutant-killing_ virus the Industries had agreed to stay in the country until a year had passed. Even so, they could be murdered first thing if they arrived there. But there was no better choice, they had everything they needed to work on a cure for the new epidemic in addition.

“When are we going home?” Billy, one of Erik’s kids, asked timidly. He had a red blanket around him as giving him comfort.

Erik stood from the table to bend down next to him. “As long as you are with us,” He stroked his black hair with a gentle gesture. “You will be at home.”


	3. Retrograde

 

February 17th, 2021.  
Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.  
Greymalkin Ln, Westchester County  
1407  
North Salem, NY.  


“All right, listen.” She stood perfectly fixed next to the Professor, who was leaning on his desk and had his hands inside his pockets. She was holding onto his own wrist with a hand, her palms were sweaty and her chest filled with pressure. “This is Anna Marie, she will be joining our class.”

She thought of saying hello somehow, maybe by waving a hand at the others but instead she stared at their faces, lips slightly parted and big eyes with unreadable expressions (unless it was amazement she interpreted). There were only seven of them, they looked from different ages. It was sort of reassuring, really; she thought she’d be fine again, thoughts that came and went all the time.

“Do you want to tell them something about yourself? Make them a question maybe?” Professor Xavier said kindly, making her turn her head to find his eyes, they were heartening. She shook her head after a short moment. “Very well, then. Please take a seat.”

Two boys she was sure she knew, Havok and Banshee, as they called themselves. She remembered being hung to the television when the missile war in Cuba occurred about a year before. Big moment for the world, certainly. The broadcasting of the events was the only thing everyone talked about and in every house people stayed close to their TVs, too.  She remembered well ignoring her mother’s petition to ‘ _stop_ _looking so interested in war’_ but it was not war nor missiles that made her stare in awe, it was the mutant’s powers and their absolute courage that made her aspire to something else. The way Magneto was willing to fight back against humans and draw a line that no one would ever dare to cross, and the way Professor X (whom was standing in front of her, she remembered and felt shivers down her spine) decided that war and killing wasn’t a way to survive. The way the whole world lost their breaths as they battled between each other, putting yet another warfare into play through live transmission by cameras of the media that _of course had to be there,_ Anna Marie hated how they risked their lives like that. 

She wanted to be a mutant then, she craved for a high-affect mutation, as they were known as; because she was sure her white bangs were a low-affect mutation, in other words, a boring one. She dreamed of being part of a team that stood up for a whole species. The admiration for them grew every time she saw their names and faces in the expensive magazines she skimmed through when she took trips to the drugstore. She wanted all of that, admiration and respect, the partnership, the cool names and _the outfits_. Even when mutants were target of hatred and discrimination, pointed out by the social media as _monsters to be afraid of_ she didn’t mind, she wanted to be that kind of hero herself. But then her own mutation, the one she had hoped for so achingly, manifested on her and she almost killed the boy that had been her first kiss, and her last.

“Has anyone read _The Secret Garden_ by Frances Hodgson Burnett? Well— it narrates the story of Mary Lennox, an unsightly little girl who loves no one and whom no one loves…”

Her eyes stayed fixed on Charles Xavier, whose name had become very well-known across the world, to the point were other proud mutants began fighting on their own for their rights and called themselves _“X-Men”_ as Professor X had been but an inspiration for so many.  Her mind kept on the timeline and continued with the events of how her world had crumbled down gradually, one juncture at a time. After her mother went missing and she had been left with her father she made one of her first decisions, the ones with importance by any means, and she went to live with her aunt. Things weren’t that bad when she got used to not having her parents around, attending school and getting in trouble at least once a week, but everything had changed since her dream came true.  As she sat there in the neat wooden chair she did not wish of being a mutant anymore, because then she understood, being a mutant meant being afraid of hurting others and being hurt by others. She turned her head a little and saw Alex staring back at her, he smiled.

 

 

_There was a time when my family was extremely happy. There was a time I thought I’d always enjoy life, even when it had its problems because I faced them, even when it had its sad parts because I got over them._

Anna Marie read the words she had just written, she made a face; that wasn’t exactly what she intended to write. The corridors had very old carpets but they were in good state, clean and not a single thread was out of place; and even when the Institute was immense and had immense and countless gardens she ended up on top of one of those blue rugs, her back leaning on a wall and a journal on her hands. It was kind of ridiculous to have such a colossal place to hold only seven students, but she remembered they begun admitting children only a few months ago since Professor Xavier had only just finished his recovery from the bullet wound that had stopped the menace of war, he still rubbed his hipbone every so often and had a subtle limp, she observed.

It was her second day of her new life. Her second decision had come from grief and guilt, when she had to see her boyfriend’s parents cry at the foot of a hospital bed because their son wouldn’t wake up. She had come running home to empty her school backpack and refill it with some clothes; she had stolen all the money in her aunt’s purse and ran to the train station, asking for directions and hoping for the best. Her fears slowly washed away when she met with the Professor, something she never thought doing. She allowed herself to feel proud for a moment, when she thought about being member of the second class of Xavier’s School. She would be able to see more and more kids come in and she would see them grow up, maybe she could even _teach them stuff_. She hugged her legs to her chest and felt something tingling inside her.

“What are you doing here?” It was Sean, she felt more than intimidated looking up at him and Alex at the same time.

She said nothing, limiting herself to raising an eyebrow and watching as Alex nudged him.

“Want to take a walk?” It was like her past schooldays, with the boys who were jerks but were also cute. He extended his hand to help her up and she eyed him with wretchedness and maybe a little bit of aversion.                                       

She stood up by herself. “If I touched you, you’d die.” She wished they didn’t think she was kidding.

 

                                                                

“You can get gloves!” said Sean in an enthusiastic tone. They were passing through one of the gardens of the sides of the building, Sean’s shoelaces were untied but he didn’t mind at all.

Anna Marie realized that he was trying to _cheer her up_ when he became silent and sad-faced at her lack of response.

“It isn’t that bad.” Alex continued, his hands in his pockets. “You’ve been through the worst part already, now remember the saying.”

“What saying?” She looked up hopeful.           

“In order to adapt, there must be evolution first,” He beamed at her while the words resounded in her mind, reaching their meaning immediately.

She nodded with a small smile upon her face, “But— how is it like? I mean, how was it like?” Her voice had gone louder and then back to low. “That time in Cuba…”

“I was scared to death.” Alex replied first, bringing a hand to his chest as if remembering. Then there was a short moment of silence before Marie turned to look at Sean.

“Shitting my pants, basically.”                                                                         

She chuckled at that, covering her mouth with her hand.

“I am _serious!_ That was the most terrifying thing it’s ever happened to _me,”_ Alex rolled his eyes while Marie kept laughing. “Us.”

“Yeah. I don’t recommend it. Stick to your homework and vegetables.”

“Ne-ver.”  She grinned while shaking her head.

“ _Goddammit_ , _Anna Marie!”_ Sean said sarcastically, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I’d rather get in trouble, you know?”

“What’s more fun, anyway?” Alex agreed with her, even when his voice sounded exactly like what Anna called ‘growing up’, which normally didn’t include fun stuff like getting in trouble for no reason at all.

“You don’t mean it.” Marie giggled and spat the truth, “You are getting old.”

“I w _as_ in _jail_ before Charles and Erik recruited me! I know what I’m talking abou—“ _Charles and Erik?_ She wondered if the moment would come that she could refer to them by their names, the answer was absolutely not. It wasn’t like she had been trained or recruited by them, sadly.

“Old?” Sean interrupted, raising an eyebrow and making a disgusted face. “Alright, what do you, _little fresh youngster,_ can do that we can’t, huh?”

“I don’t know. Cartwheels?”                             

“Come on, we can do cartwheels, too.” Alex suggested with a smug smile on his face.

“Huh,” She crossed her arms across her chest and did a little of tiptoeing to look taller. “Prove it.”

“You prove it _first_.”                        

Anna Marie threw her hands to the air with singular triumph and with that the boys backed up, then she leaned her body forward following an invisible line on the grass and did a neat cartwheel at which the others shouted approval.

At that moment, well, wasn’t everything alright? She asked herself. Alex and Sean tried to sort out cartwheels but only succeeded when Marie showed them the technique. She was laughing herself, and genuinely; they were playing like well-known friends and she had quickly bonded with the boys she admired so dearly. There was nothing else to do than to embrace the moment.

                                                              

                                                                                                                                

_“Better, I think. The kids are keeping him distracted and that’s good I guess. Even though… I think he hasn’t used his powers ever since.” (…)  “I am not sure.”_

That night, Anna Marie roamed the halls after failing to fall asleep for the tenth time. She hadn’t realized Mystique was there until she heard her low voice from the drawing room, she was on the phone. Anna peaked from the corner for a second, Mysti— Raven’s hair was much longer now, it had beautiful waves and it was all a lovely shade of orange; she was also wearing a sleeveless white dress. Marie put her back against the wall so she wouldn’t be seen and made no more noise; carefully she slid down the wall.

_“Perhaps… No, this is the last month of physical therapy.” (…) “Well, it does bother him a lot, it must be really painful.”(…) “I always do.”_

All of sudden it felt wrong to be listening, she thought of getting up immediately and pretend she hadn’t heard a word but if she moved too quickly Raven would hear her, so she slowly begun to incorporate.

_“He’s getting better every day, I’m sure he’ll be fine soon.” (…) “It is no use,” (…) “Give him time, all right? And thank you for this.” (…) “No. I won’t.”_

After that, she hung up and Anna Marie had barely taken two steps away and then Raven had turned on the hall lights and was behind her back.

“Marie?” Her voice actually sounded sleepy.

She turned around slowly and pretended to look as lost as she could manage. “Yes?”

“Can’t you sleep, dear?” She shook her head, looking down. “Come on, I have something for you.”

Marie did feel a little scared at those words at first but didn’t hesitate to follow Raven to her room where she pulled out a squared, white box with a pearly ribbon on top.  
_A gift? She was really giving her a gift?_ Her family had never had that much money, so even on her birthday she had never received such a huge gift box, mainly because her presents were never wrapped in nothing to look prettier, but still; the greatest thing she had ever gotten was an Easy-Bake Oven when she had turned five.

“It’s just a little something,” Raven smiled handing the box that Marie could barely dare to reach for.

“Thank you… Thank you so much.” Her lips trembled a bit. She grabbed the box with utter care.

“Go on, open it!” She placed the package on Raven’s desk and lifted the lid slowly. “I hope you like it…” She unfolded a beautiful dark blue dress with small white rhinestones shaped as stars all over it, her jaw dropped a little; she noticed her own expression and a huge smile followed. Marie imagined herself on it, twirling and running to make the fabric move with her, she couldn’t wait. There was something else inside, she reached for it and found a pair of silver gloves that went with the dress, and her smile went wider.

                                                                                     

October 3rd, 2021.                                                     

“Angel is waiting for us, Sean, _come on._ ” Alex said under his breath as he covered half his face with a surgical mask.

“Yeah? The same Angel that betrayed us?”

“So you're not going?”

“Of course I’m going. I just don't want to meet with Angel.”

“Listen to me, this is not about what we did in the past.”

“Then why is it that the M are over there and the X are over _here_?” Sean had to hold Alex’s shoulders, he was afraid that he’d leave at any moment. “We chose sides for a reason, they said it themselves; we want different things.”

Alex stopped to look directly into his eyes. “Not this time,” Sean stayed silent but his hands kept shaking. “We want them to quit murdering us, and it’s _us,_ okay? No M no X we are mutants all the same and we need to be together for once, Sean. People have actually stopped hiding! If we win this could be the beginning of a decent life.”

Sean looked away with the pain of responsibility weighing on his shoulders, he hadn’t chose to live in that era, he hadn’t chose to be a mutant and yet he was put on the front of the battlefield every time.

“Charles will know.”

“He won’t.” Anna Marie had grown a habit of spying people at night, which had lent her to learning a lot of secrets like that but those she promised to keep to herself.

“What are you doing here?” Alex’s jaw clenched along with his fists.

“What do you mean he won’t?” asked Sean.                                    

“He hasn’t used his telepathy,” Okay, that one needed to be known, just for them two. “He has too many things to worry about. If we go now and come back really early no one will notice we were gone.”

“I’m sorry, ‘ _we’?_ ”

“You have to let me go with you.”     

“No.” Sean’s voice was stern as she had never heard it.

“I can take care of myself!” Marie shouted making fists on her sides. “I don’t need anyone to look after me, I got here with the help of no one and suddenly I can’t make my own decisions? Let’s face it, nobody can hurt me.”

“Yes they can, now listen;” Alex slowly reached for her hands and held them close to himself. “We thank you for your interest and for not saying anything but today you have to stay here.”

“Please, come on!”

“NO,” Alex continued, “No, Anna Marie. You stay and cover us, please… You stay safe.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you,” Marie looked down to see their hands enlaced together but yet not touching. Never touching. “Because we love you, Marie.”

She stood there, shaking her head and holding back her tears and pushed back her feelings, she had to bite her bottom lip out of frustration before storming off with long strides back to her room.

Sean nodded at Alex as he adjusted a bandana around his face, it was like putting on armour, the final step before going into war. Their boots thudded against the ground as they begun to trot to a secondary exit; the wind blew with power against them.

“So I guess Raven declined the invitation,” Alex mentioned when they reached Mills Road.

“She’s changed a lot, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” The bushes and trees shook now and then and _every time_ Sean turned to look, thinking they had been discovered just a few yards away. “Her brother needed her but I saw it in her eyes.”

“What did you see?”

“She wanted to go with Erik.”

“Yeah, but she didn’t.”                                                                                   

“That’s what I’m talking about, she’s changed.” Sean fished his public transport card out of his pants pocket and waved it with a hand. “If Erik hadn’t accidentally shot her brother we would be on our way to meet Angel _and Raven._ She would be number one interested in participating in protest rallies, each one of them and you know it.”

Alex simply shrugged, “I guess.”                                                                           

The bus passed by soon; Sean couldn’t understand why it always had to have gloomy blue neon lights inside, as if riding a lonely bus at midnight wasn’t scary enough. But there they were, and they’d still have to wait for a train in Harlem so they could make it to Westchester County’s Airport.  

The idea had been to prevent any departures and arrivals to stop the virus from spreading as fast as it already had. It would be dangerous because everyone knew that policemen had no mercy, they were just following orders, or that’s what they claimed.

Besides, at least seventy percent of thel media that was present in all protests was there to report falsely, to induce hate in all people that hadn't been there, hate against mutants for being such inconsiderate beings and not giving a fuck about other peoples’ needs.

All in all, it was their first participation in a protest and their insides shook and their teeth gritted in fear but it was something that made them proud, too. Standing in front of the fire-line wasn't for a second easy and it was very respectable to decide to not go and not take risks.

They spotted Angel leaning against a wall outside Harlem Station, her leather jacket was a bit too loose and her combat boots awfully dirty with remains of mud. A young boy stood next to her, his ears were pointy and his eyes yellow and he seemed to be nervous by how he tugged at his jacket’s sleeves.

“…Hey, guys,” Her expression softened as they approached, Alex hugged her as a courtesy before Sean did but they said nothing. “Thank you for coming. This is Kurt, by the way.”

“Hi…” Kurt’s voice was small and frightened. Sean and Alex nodded at him kindly.

“We better get going.” Angel pulled up the hood from her sweatshirt underneath. They rushed down the stairs and inside a wagon, apparently only mutants were there that night. They sat together, facing each other and trying to dodge their looks. “No harsh feelings, right?” Angel finally asked, putting her hands on her knees and leaning in a little. “About Shaw and choosing sides,” They knew exactly what she meant, her heart raced.

“Just, uh…” Sean began, strong at first but losing his intention quickly. “Let it go.”

 

“You better wish for God’s forgiveness.” An old lady yelled into Alex face as they made their way through the crowd. There were grey strands of hair covering her face and her bony fingers gripped his shoulders shortly before turning away.

The air smelled like flesh and thick smoke, like flesh burning. All around people with covered mouths shouted in unison, their voices transmitted the way their lungs were fighting to keep going with the lack of air, they sounded like dismay, for moments it made no sense and no understanding until one voice joined another and the words began to surge like thunder.  

The four of them walked their way into chaos. There were cameras everywhere and at some point it resulted intimidating but the more Angel thought of it the more she tried to stay close to them, cameras meant safety, they meant ‘if you kill me, they'll know and they'll be angrier.’ She held onto Kurt's hand as they approached to the entrance, they kept bumping with other demonstrators and it felt like they could fall at any moment and die ridiculously as that.

They gathered all at the front, behind their masks there was anger and an X Gene that made them vulnerable at getting infected. Alex regretted their decision, as brave as it had been it was also stupid. His whole world froze, standing there, surrounded by hundreds of persons and yelling and fire. All he could lie his eyes on was Emma Frost, her face bruised as if she had been in a fist fight and her eyes dead, as if her mutation wasn't there anymore. Alex could swear she had recognised him, too, but it only took a second before she had vanished in the many faces of the crowd.

The cops were starting to fight back, grabbing wrists and pushing mutants to the floor. Screaming voices expanded panic around. Everyone then looked determined in using their weapons, no mercy.

Then a strange figure appeared from nowhere exactly. It was a shadow of something huge. They ran into a safer point in all that, against the glass doors, and when they finally saw what the figure was they tried to step back. A black horse and its masked rider, holding an axe. Kurt quickly turned his head to look at Angel, asking silently if they should escape then, but Angel’s eyes were fixed in the scene. The rider’s action made every single cop back off, and in a matter of minutes the access to the airport was open. Then the sound of an explosion pierced through their ears and they didn't have time to do anything before everything blurred out.

Thunder displayed across the sky like a momentary art piece, making Kurt look up and take a lungful of cold air, a single raindrop fell on the tip of his nose and ran down to his lips, then thousands followed to cover the asphalt.

They stood in the middle of the street, exactly where the white line markings of the road were. They had trapped their bodies in an embrace, their arms were tangled and their hands tightly grasping into each other’s.

“What was that?” Angel said failing to catch her breath properly.

Then, the siren of a patrol made them turn their heads to see the car ignited in flames passing across the perpendicular road. When it went out of sight they could only hear the crash and the siren dying out. 

 

November 17th, 2021.                                                                     

It had been raining all week, so that morning she smiled when she saw sunlight slanting in through the window. She felt really hungry so she rushed to change her clothes, she swore she smelled bacon. She had knocked over the book she had fallen asleep reading to: ‘The Secret Garden’, which she had asked the Professor for, books turned out to be a great way of conceiving sleep at night. Marie picked it up quickly, she didn’t want to give it back with bent pages. First thing she did every morning was put on her gloves, even if they didn’t match with the rest of her clothing, denim shorts and holey shirts, it didn’t matter, they made her feel safe and confident. Her dress was the one thing she saved for especial occasions, like that time when Alex and Sean took her to a to a pizza place nearby at night. Even if she wasn’t around their age they could have fun together, she was glad that she wasn’t alone in the world for once.

But then again, things weren’t so nice for mutants, even living in the twenty first century, there was not much difference from earlier times, at least that’s what Marie had read on the newspaper that materialized every morning in the dining room. Even though she hadn’t gone outside in a long time, she could feel the fear spreading way faster than the virus, a nameless one. She had asked Hank, why hadn’t someone named it yet;

“They don’t want to give it importance.”                                                                              

“Why not?”                

“Because it is.”                                    

A question surged again, but she better kept it to herself. Of course they wouldn’t die, they were mutants, the stronger species, weren’t they?

But then as she crossed the hall, excited feet covered with rain boots, she stopped halfway as she heard twenty decibels of painful puking from Alex’s room.

She waited outside, unsure of what she should do and then the puking stopped and she couldn’t resist from turning the doorknob.

“Don’t come inside!”                                                                                    

A knot formed in her throat, “A- Alex, what’s wrong?” She pressed her forehead on the door and could feel her own cold sweat against her skin.

“Call the Professor.”

 

_Oh no. No. No, this can’t be happening. Please, not him._

It’s funny how your own thoughts sound louder than ever when you’re in a moment of trouble, as if like so God could hear them and fix everything, but it never gets better, and so that’s how people stop believing.

Marie went straight to the library, Hank and the Professor were always there lately, for all she knew they were doing research about the infected persons across the world. Even some of their weekly science and math classes were cancelled because both of them were busy visiting local hospitals. She felt only a bit guilty about banging the library doors so violently, even when it was only a couple of times before Hank opened them with a concerned expression at its fullest. Marie didn’t say anything, she barely made eye contact with the Professor, who was sitting in front of a desk replete with newspapers. His mien turned from anxious to distressed with resignation as he found out what Marie had just seen.

 

“It’s all right,” The Professor whispered as himself and Hank helped Alex up from the bathroom floor. “It’s all right.” He repeated and Alex cried.

November, 30th 2021

Marie felt stripped of everything that ever comforted her. She sat still in the darkness of her room, her body was shivering and she didn’t feel quite right. When her feet touched the ice cold floor it almost burnt her skin, but she got used to it a few steps in. She made no noise at all as she ran across the hall and up the stairs to find Sean’s room; once there, she waited before knocking the wood twice, then waited some more, knocked again, turned the doorknob, forced it, kicked the door when it didn’t open.

She turned away, determined to go back into her room just as the CIA lady had instructed but the sound of horse trotting at a slow pace on the pavement distracted her, she had to look.

It was the Professor’s studio the room Marie went into. She looked around and slowly stepped towards the window, she stopped for a second to take a look at the bookshelves; there was no way of jabbing any other book in there. Something moved quickly behind her, Marie turned to look and a chill went down her spine when her eyes perceived a shadow. The trotting was getting louder, she tried to not give the shadow any importance and she continued to approach to the window.

Her heart was thumping on her chest but somehow she felt calmer when she peeked through the curtains. Even though the road was far from there, she could see the black horse, bold and tall. It passed by casually and looking straight forward. The rider wore all black and a gas mask that cover all their face. Unexpectedly, the horse stopped and Marie froze when the rider turned their head and look directly into her.

The most horrible noise corrupted her thoughts then, like static and screeching and yelling. It lasted for a few seconds until the rider turned away from her and the horse continued to walk forward. Her hands pushed her whole body towards the desk’s drawers, she threw them open in a desperate rush. She pulled out all the document she found inside and threw them to the floor. Finally, next to some photographs her hand blindly grabbed what she was looking for.

She brought the metallic object close to her to read the engraved letters: _A SUCKING CHEST WOUND IS NATURE’S WAY OF TELLING YOU THAT YOU’VE BEEN AMBUSHED._ She snatched a photograph while pushing down the lighter’s metal grinders with her thumb. The paper quickly caught the flame, Marie couldn’t distinguish the two men standing next to each other wearing lab coats in the picture and soon their faces consumed with fire.

Pulling the curtains apart she elbowed the window with strength she didn’t know she possessed, the glass broke and fell into one of the front gardens, the same direction the photo went. It was amazing how effectively the flames took over the plant life that had lived there for ages.

Lastly, the lighter fell to the studio’s floor, and the sheets of paper where the fire’s fuel. Marie carefully shut the door behind her when she left the studio, there was no one in the hall so she ran as quietly as she could back to her room. She could hear yelling, inside and outside the mansion. In minutes, dozens of protesters were invading the place, as if the masked rider had brought them along.


	4. Deadweight

September 19th, 2020.  
Greymalkin Ln, Westchester County  
1407  
North Salem, NY.

The pills seemed to calm him as he stared at the medicine bottle on the night stand. It was the second day he was back home from the hospital and he already missed having an intravenous dripping morphine into his bloodstream. However, that had never happened unless Charles used his empathy to convince the nurses, which for a telepath meant to actually make them feel _his own pain._ The sudden look of discomfort and distress on the nurses’ faces made it clear that it had worked. And after came the suggestion lurking their thoughts. _This one has a really awful aura._ It was too obvious that they had become insensitive of others’ pain unless it affected them directly. Then Charles would regret using his mutation like that only until the opioid made its effect.

Right now he could only focus on the sensations burning beneath his skin. Something inside his stomach felt like burning. Charles hoped it wasn’t ulcers caused by too many pills and so little food. That day, a small bowl of applesauce had remained untouched on the nightstand since seven a.m. where Raven had left it. He was starving now and yet sitting up and grabbing the spoon seemed like too much.

Charles hated himself for becoming so distant and hurt in so many ways. He hated himself for having stopped talking; the first days he had been entirely mute and he knew how much it hurt Raven to see his brother like that but he couldn’t help himself. Days after he would say short words:   _yes, no,_ _leave_. Raven or Hank’s companies were hard to bear, especially his sister’s. Charles felt guilt-ridden as if he had her chained to him, because she felt responsible for his aftercare for even considering leaving with Erik.

And he hated Erik for leaving.                                        

Right now, it was the first time he had been left alone while being awake for so long and it had only been fifty-four minutes. He let his breath out and tried rolling over in bed to face the nightstand, his throat still had the sensation of pills going down in it. He felt so small and helpless lying there in silence, like a wounded bird. Charles had become insufferable, he was well aware of that. Even when others were willing to help, Charles’ cooperation was difficult to grow and he was overall combative with his care. He had spent the entirety of his time reopening old wounds, those that took years to scar. And when he wasn't refusing to eat he was reluctant to speak to anyone. Even though, he had kept the intimate thoughts of the people around him present. Some words echoed inside him for days ( _Why are you doing this to me? Can't_ _he_ _get over himself already? He looks too fragile to be a mutant_ ) and those turned him silent and caged with nothing but his own heartache.

He let his eyes close and a familiar smell retrieved a memory from the back of his head. It was the smell of his blanket that overwhelmingly brought Cain’s fist straight to his nose; he felt the warm stinging and it warned his memory system how far he was going, then he became a seven year old boy again. Charles had always been a small kid: short limbs, weak muscles, and Cain's weight easily pinned him down to his bedroom floor, Charles didn't flight nor fight, and he just became paralysed. He tasted the blood in his mouth again, and felt the uncomfortable itching on his cheeks and his nose running, but the gaping hole in his stomach and his weak lungs losing breath were the worst of it. How he was so afraid just seeing Cain. Charles' skin crawled as his tears washed his face.

The thought altered his heart rate, it was what happened when his mutation  _won_ : there was no world outside his own mind and he became too aware of his body, and so his pain was greater. If he could register any external stimuli he’d cling to it to regain control. His heartbeat rang in his ears so he decided to focus on that. Eventually, it became lower and gentler. When Charles was able to open his eyes again, his heartbeat had mixed into the ticking of the clock. Then he realized he couldn't stay still, an acerbic sensation crawled from the surgery-fresh injury up to his spine, and he had to clench and unclench his fists over and over again to stop focusing on the pain. Reaching for the bottle filled with oxycodone was tempting, it was the only way of easing himself. But if falling asleep wasn't an option, then sticking a handful of pills in his mouth couldn't be one, yet the horrible feeling made him consider it and he realized why there was always someone at his side, watching at him.

There was a knock on the door followed by Hank's shy smile, Charles had been too distracted to even notice his presence approach.

"Oh, I thought you were asleep." Charles said nothing. Instead he wiped the tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand.

It was a nice courtesy for them to be always in a good mood for him, especially because they kept doing it no matter how little Charles responded to their gestures and kindly voices. Hank walked across the room to open the curtains, letting the sun beam inside.

"Your doctor said that you have to walk around more often," Hank suddenly had the forearm crutches leaning on Charles' side of the bed. "You should try now."

Charles turned his head away and covered his eyes with his forearm, a sign of exasperation but Hank continued to look at him warmly. "Alex and Sean ask if they can see you.”

Charles' gut wrenched. There was one time at the hospital that the boys visited him. He remembered the warmth of their silent presence but nothing else.

"Could you help me at my feet please?" Charles barely pronounced, his eyes not meeting Hank's.

So Hank helped him up as he had always done. "Are you doing OK?"

It was a question that Charles listened frequently, one that he only replied when the answer was yes.

¨¨                                                           

Maybe that was the last day Charles used his telepathy for a long while. Or that was what he remembered, when Sean and Alex came to him steady and fast at first but slowed down when they actually got to him. Their arms wrapped around his body carelessly and Charles let them do so, and he disposed of his telepathy because it had never gotten him anywhere.

Or maybe it happened when his sister came to his room in the middle of the night, as she used to do when they were only kids and thunders threatened the night. Raven entered his room and slipped beneath the covers, careful not to move nor touch Charles. Just moments earlier, Charles had finally given in. He had kept the bunch of pills in a tight fist for a while before deciding that he needed them to spend the night painlessly.

“You should have left with Erik, if that’s what you wanted.”

Raven digested the words first, which hit her like a blow to the solar plexus, but she snapped back angrier than she intended to sound. “You said you’d never read my thoughts.” She stated defensively. Raven didn’t want to admit that she thought her place belonged with Erik, not with her wounded brother. But then again why should she feel guilty?

“I know and I’m sorry,” his voice broke and his emotions took control. Charles’ crying was unsteady, like swallowing the sobs and gasping loudly for air.

“Shhh… No. Don’t, Charles.” She hushed, gently grabbing his wrists as he tried to cover his face, his legs sticking to his chest.

“I am sick of this,” His eyes were tightly shut and his words not as easy to speak. “I am sick of feeling guilty of my burden.”

“Your mutation is  _not_  a burden,”                                                  

“Then how do you name it?” It came out as a shout, followed by a throaty painful noise. “I want to be alone.”

“No, look at me.” But he didn’t, instead he pulled his hands closer to his face, the heels of his palms pressing against his forehead. “It's going to be okay.” Raven let go of him and waited for his shallow breathing to ease down.

She explored the words on her vocabulary that would make his brother feel better but she could only think of how selfish Charles had always been. When she asked him if she would ever fit in, he had avoided her questions, not genuinely caring about what her feelings deep inside were. Not even being a telepath could he imagine.

Subsequently, she held her breath fearing that he had heard everything in her mind. So she reached out for his hand again but this time his muscles were dead. His crying had ceased and he wouldn’t move at all.

“Charles?” Raven straightened up immediately. Two fingers pressed against his wrist’s pulse point, worried until she confirmed his pulse was strong. A call to the ambulance later, Raven had never been more grateful for Charles' unconsciousness.

¨¨                                                                    

August 23rd, 2004.  
Rehberger Weg 13  
17194 Vollrathsruhe, Germany.

Erik ran. His movements were well coordinated, each step as steady as he could place on the snow, just a few inches, he thanked God. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears and feel his chest burning, aching for breath, but he never slowed down. His feet hit the ground harder than they ever did.

“ _HALT_ _!”_           

Every mouthful of air was followed by a painful pressure in his lungs. He began to picture how he would face his death. No guns involved, just the constant blows with sticks and airless screams that would fracture his bones and burst his organs.

" _LEHNSHERR!"_

The piercing noise of the guard’s whistles was getting closer and closer. Fleeing was now clearly impossible. He was ten years old and his first escaping attempt was flawed, he then figured out. Erik had just wasted one good chance to get out.

He fell face first without any further notice. His ribs received good part of the impact, along with his jaw. Erik lied there, his hands quickly grabbing one of the branches around him as he was choking for air.

The guards stomped his feet behind him and he knew it was over. A man in black uniform rolled him over like one does to a puppy, by size comparison. Erik wheezed between coughs and formed a fist around the neck of the man’s jacket.

“Er wird mit einem Asthmaanfall,”  _He is having an asthma attack,_  the man snarled, looking into Erik’s eyes. The boy was crying and pushing himself up as if that would bring oxygen to his lungs.

“Beeilung! Das Kind muss leben.”  _Hurry! The kid must live._

And so he was carried away in the arms of the monsters that haunted him day and night. Erik’s vision began to turn blurry at the edges, he felt like he would die at any moment. He kicked his legs with the little strength he had left. Maybe if they dropped him, it wouldn’t be that bad to die there. In fact preferably than dying when they poked around inside his brain while he was awake. But somehow they always kept them alive.

Erik whined because it was the only sound his lungs allowed him to produce.

 “Halt’s Maul, du Spinner.”  _Shut the fuck up, you freak_ _._

¨¨                                                                                       

When they brought him back inside he hadn’t passed out surprisingly and as they neared an inhaler to his mouth he swore he would never forget his errors and he would learn from them.

They forced him to his feet and pushed him in the direction to his cell. Every other mutant that was held in the fortress approached to the little window on their cell’s doors. They glanced at Erik with hatred and he didn’t know why.

Back in his small room, with only a mattress to keep him company (a pile of blankets and an old eiderdown actually, mattresses have metallic springs), Erik began to form his plan. The principal missing piece to escaping was metal. They kept him around concrete walls and plastic everything. But Erik knew there was metal somewhere _, it had to be,_  only that he couldn’t feel it. It was like being blind.

Worse for his situation, every time they would experiment on him they would place a blindfold over his eyes. Erik knew there were scalpels and saws and whatnot but where exactly? His weakness drove him insane.

Hence his conclusion. He needed to learn to feel it. Across the concrete, or wherever it was when Erik couldn’t see it.

Furthermore, he decided to wait for an opportunity. Never show his abilities to anyone. Fool the examiners when they asked him to move something, lie to them and tell them he couldn’t do much.

Look around more when they walked him outside. Memorise the place. Memorise their faces.

When he could take a glimpse at the other boys and girls there, they always suffered. He wouldn’t do that. Not waste his time when he could learn something; names, routines, the passing of time.

And so the opportunity day came one Thursday night.

A blonde woman slammed his door open. The heels of her boots against the concrete floor made an echoing call for Erik’s attention. He was curled up on the mattress because this morning particularly, he felt weak and exhausted. 

“Einundzwanzig, siebenundvierzig, zweiundachtzig”  _Twenty-one, forty-seven, eighty-two,_  declared the woman looking at her side.

That was when Erik knew something unusual was going on. Usually if they needed him, no matter if it was day or night, they would drag him out of his cell.

“Ja, es ist ihm.”  _Yes, it’s him._  Erik straightaway pushed himself up, stepping backwards in a hurry until his back was against the wall. He knew that voice.

The guard nodded in approval and stepped back, giving Shaw space to enter the cell, and never looking away. He grinned as he approached like a predator to its prey.  

“Erik…” Shaw did not speak until he had him at bay, one hand leaning against the wall. “Schön dich zu sehen, mein Junge.”  _Good to see you, my boy._

It worried him a lot being in the state he was. He knew there’d be a chance of running again but his asthma and fatigue wouldn’t help him at all. Erik couldn't look at him directly, even when Shaw was that close to him. And even though he tried to never be afraid, not at the guards yelling and not at by the lack of knowledge of which procedure the medics would put him through, he always ended consumed by fear.

“Zeit zu gehen.”  _Time to go._

Before he could leave his cell, the female guard ceremoniously presented to him a cutting-edge weapon made entirely of glass and pressed it against his neck in a movement that Erik already expected.

“Wenn Sie alles zu versuchen, Ich werde schneiden Sie geöffnet.”  _If you try anything I'll cut you open._  She mumbled next to his ear, sending shivers down his spine and yet Erik didn’t move, not an inch. Then she tied the usual blindfold on him but what surprised Erik was that his wrists were tied together, as well as his elbows. That way, his hands were formed in fists and his lips touched both his thumbs. It was a coarse rope that cut off his blood flow and made his fingertips feel numb. If he lowered his arms a little bit it resulted very uncomfortable.

As they walked him out, Erik tried to never lose himself in the place. He mapped in his mind which stairs he was coming down from and which halls he was walking through in the hopes that he could find the exit if the opportunity presented itself.

Erik began to shake violently when the winter air hit him. He was outside again, with the glass dagger pressed harder against his skin. And it all went to shit when he heard the door of a car opening.

“Denken Sie nicht einmal darüber nach.”  _Don't even think about it._ He was pretty sure that he could move a car if he focused correctly, but Shaw's bark made it clear that it was risky, and Erik wouldn’t fail again.

The guard pushed him inside, accidentally cutting his skin and then getting herself in. It was a superficial cut, but it bled all the same. Erik had to suppose Shaw was sitting in the passenger’s seat and that there was a driver in the car also. The engine was started while the guard fastened the seat belt around Erik’s torso. There was that sound of being inside a high velocity vehicle that Erik had forgotten. The breaking of the wind by a metallic object of that size. He had been caged for too long.

He dared to rest his head on the seat, doubting if the woman would swat him for that or not. It was comfortable. The pointy shaft of the glass blade was held where he was already bleeding. Erik visualized the road in his mind. It was narrow, the snow slightly covered its edges and there were trees on both sides, their branches were dead in the cold. Another car drove passed them which gave Erik a sense of space. He breathed in as softly as possible and he concentrated on the weight of the car he was in. What was its shape like? How tall was it? He started to sense it. The metal of the engines, the metal in the wheels. It was the heaviest weight Erik could picture.

He wanted the car crash to be hard enough to get Shaw and the guard to lose consciousness at least. And hopefully not get himself killed in the process. Erik didn’t understand how his ability worked and neither did the researchers so far but he convinced himself about being able to control it. It had to be fast and it had to be such a movement that would put the dagger away from him.

And it did happened fast. Erik stopped biting his tongue and breathed in; he gritted his teeth before leaning his body to the window side and the car with him. He was able to throw the vehicle into an overturn and the ice helped the car to keep rolling over for what it seemed an eternity.

Erik tried to cover his face from the shattered glass that showered inside but at the same moment he was thrown forward violently, the seatbelt biting into his chest and knocking the wind out of him. Finally, the car ploughed into the trees on the side of the road, the metal groaned and shrieked.

The loudness of it all was the only thing Erik could remember. It may had been minutes, even hours but it felt like an instant after the crash when he woke up in a mess of crushed everything. His insides felt like liquid and he didn’t think that was a good sign. But he couldn’t hear anything, no grunts or moving which gave him a chance to escape at last.

Erik gagged from the smell in the air, oil and burnt flesh mixed together got to his throat. First he had to remove the blindfold of him and with both hands tied together like that, it seemed like an impossible task.

He jerked his head back and rubbed it on the seat, his groaning mixed with his coughs. Moving like that made him realize that a foreign body had gouged the side of his thorax, the glass dagger. The cloth around his eyes started to give in until it slipped up his forehead.

The smoke made it harder to see than the darkness itself. Erik pushed the door open with the help of his mutation, not daring to look at the female guard beside him. Erik tried to roll over but something pinned him down. He rushed himself to undo the seat belt. His lungs started to feel like they did days before but he did what he could to stay calm and keep breathing. He was starting to wheeze again.

When he kicked himself out of the vehicle he did it too quickly, face first against the snow.  The glass dagger got further inside him with his weight. His cries filled the air around him, he felt tiny and exposed. As he spluttered fighting for air, Erik thought he would never get up again, and maybe that’d be okay.

He wondered if the car would catch fire before the ambulances and fire workers came by, and he decided he rather move. Erik struggled to his feet, tripping over at least three times before managing a few steps.

It was like learning how to walk again, with the lack of control of his limbs and imbalance. Focusing on one step at a time. He didn’t know where he was going or what would happen next, but just getting away felt like a relief.

His left arm was entirely numb. Erik looked down to find his forearm placed in a strange angle, the ropes keeping his broken bones in place for him. It was funny how he couldn't feel any pain.

His breathing never worsened until the sirens could be heard. Far in the distance, he knew not even they would be able to find him. He kept on walking, breathing in the frozen air.

Then a car pulled over, and a woman cradled his wounded body with her own warmth. She asked him questions that kept him awake and alive. And Erik's fate changed forever.

¨¨

December 4th, 2021.  
Tupper Lake, NY.                                                

The wooden stairs screeched beneath Marie's rain boots. She carried nothing with her but her own courage. And the hopes to find her friends in a place she didn't know. She looked down and failed to see the floral pattern of her sweatshirt; it was too dark to go outside. It was too dangerous.

But Marie knew how much it hurt the Professor to have heard of Sean and Alex and Angel (Marie's new and only friends) and the house that he had grown up in being burnt down. So maybe if she found them and brought them to him, he would be at peace. And even more, the gaping hole in her chest would cease its aching and she'd sleep at last.

The door's handle was freezing metal at the touch of her fingers. Then Marie thought it twice. Was she really going to make it? And even if she surprisingly didn't die within a few days into her journey, what were the chances of actually finding her friends. So it hit her like a train: her friends were probably dead by now.

"What are you doing here?" An icy voice asked behind her. Marie knew exactly who it was, which terrified her beyond sense.

She turned slowly and realized that she didn't even get to unlock the door. "I..." The words disappeared from her mind. It was difficult making eye contact with Erik Lehnsherr so she looked around instead. Then she found herself nervously playing with her thumbs like a little girl.

The man slightly gestured towards the living room, his expression fond enough for Marie to trust in. "Come."

She shook her head and found the meaning of panic once again. "No. Please. I have to do something."

"About what?" The Professor asked calmly, Marie hadn't even seen him until he spoke. He was standing in the hall in a way that made him look taller. When he flicked on a fluorescent light above them the dark circles under his eyes brought up the impossible blue of them.

"The School- Your house- It was me, I started the fire- But I didn't mean to! They made me do it!"

For a while the Professor was mute, focusing only on her. Erik turned his head to look at him, expecting to hear something but it didn’t happen, so he walked towards Marie and touched her shoulder ever so lightly, giving her the cue for sitting down on the couch. Marie knew the Professor was reading her thoughts, seeing how she went through his drawers and made a mess of everything. Without mentioning how she made sure that the fire caught on everything.

“Who made you do it?” Erik inquired after crouching down in front of Marie. The silent presence of the Professor impossible to ignore, as if Marie had just destroyed all of his world.

She inhaled a short breath and shook her head a little. “Someone riding a black horse…” Marie expected a look of disbelief to draw on the Erik’s face but instead he looked as if he had just missed a beat. “They had a gas mask on. They were passing by and they looked at me directly.”

Erik looked down lost in thought but Marie could finally hear the Professor’s steps walking towards them. He crouched down as well, but the shock was out of him finally. “I know it wasn’t you.” Charles said, as the girl quirked her brow in anticipation. “Forget about that. Do you think you could get some sleep tonight?”

Marie blinked in confusion but nodded at last, slowly. She then earned one steady smile from the Professor, one that assured her there was nothing else to worry about.

“Lie where you are, I’ll get a blanket. Both of us will watch over you while you rest.” Erik added, standing up and not even sparing Charles a glance.

By the moment Erik was back, Marie had already calmed down completely, which seemed impossible one minute ago. Her heartbeat had slowed down so much she felt on the verge of falling asleep already. The Professor had sat down with his legs crossed on the floor in front of her, had said some reassuring words, that she only knew were reassuring because of the tone of his voice, like a soft murmur. When the blanket was placed over her body she gave in to somnolence and closed her eyes.

The distant look on Erik’s face was worrying Charles, but his own concerns were far too overwhelming. Moreover, they were suffocating him. He gave a final look at Marie, making sure she was not having a nightmare. Taking in a deep breath in an attempt to pull himself together, he turned to Erik and said, “What are we going to do now?”

“She wanted to look for Angel and Sean and Alex, her friends.” Charles continued, nudging on purpose to bleed an answer from Erik. “I don’t even know where they went, why they left. I was too blind, I wasn’t able to-“

“They were free to go anywhere. You couldn’t have stopped them, Charles.” Erik sat next to him, crossed his legs as well and was visibly in physical pain. “And it was their fight. They felt responsible, they had to help, to do anything.”

“And what does it matter now?” Something in them, _all of them_ , didn’t want to admit that they were going to die in a matter of weeks, or days even. They could not say it aloud, but it was implicit every time they fell silent. A few moments passed until Charles spoke up again. “Who could that rider be…?” He trailed off and felt Erik’s emotions form in a knot in his throat. “Erik?" He dodged the question again, hanging his head slowly. "Erik-”

They flinched when they heard a window crashing, the glass hitting the kitchen floor and shattering even more. Marie screamed startled, waking up immediately. She held her hand out to the Professor searching for help, to go back to that perfect calmness but still she was careful not to touch his skin. Erik and Charles stood up in a rush and Marie could only grab hold of the edge of Charles’ jacket.

He turned at her and shouted without air, “ _Stay here!_ ”

When Charles stepped into the kitchen he saw a young man with his upper body coming in from the window, waving his arms in an attempt to grab Erik. The man- the _undead_ was screeching and groaning, half his face was missing skin as if it had been eaten by maggots. Meanwhile Charles was registering what he had in front of him, Erik had already summoned a knife from the counter with his power and once it was in his hand he jabbed it all the way into the undead’s skull.

Blood splattered on Erik’s face but he didn’t turn until he made sure the corpse had stopped moving. Its screeching had ceased finally, and it only stayed there, half body leaning into the sink, its eyes wide open, looking at the doorway where Charles was bracing himself, heaving at the sight of some stream of coagulated blood coming out of the corpse’s mouth. A putrid smell filled the air. Charles could see Erik covering his mouth and nose with the crook of his arm. 

“ _Shit._ Charles.” Raven called already running down the stairs. She grabbed him from behind, turning him over while he covered his mouth and tried breathing through his nose. “Focus,” She stroked Charles' hair from his face with one hand and held the back of his neck with the other. “´S over.”  

Moira passed next to them and walked into the kitchen, gun in hand, and found Erik wiping his face with the back of his hand. They practically ignored each other, or relied on having nothing to say. Moira kicked the corpse out of the window so she could look out of the broken window, searching for more undesired visitors.

“Well,” She suggested, squinting her eyes at the darkness of the forest outside. “Nothing’s approaching.”

“For now.” Erik finished.

¨¨

November 2nd, 2021.  
Resurrection Way  
Franklin Lakes, NJ.

His body was being dragged around. The noise of chains against the concrete resounded in the open air. Erik couldn’t move, couldn’t feel the metal binding him. He opened his eyes with excessive effort. His sight nothing but blurry, only registering the light coming in. He was wet, soaked in. It was raining and his torso was naked. Then he distinguished shadowed figures, a crowd in front of him, silent and expecting, all cloaked in black.

He moaned when his body was shoved against an electric pole, his head banging against it. They put him on his knees, his back to the crowd. He felt his own blood dripping down his forehead and into his left eye. He caught the silhouette of a female body before closing his eyes. She was small but strong at the shoulders, she was the one to drag him there. She hauled her feet a little to get closer to him, then leaned in to lift Erik’s chains from the floor, she ignored his presence as she chained his wrists around the pole, painfully tight. 

As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t fight back. It was unbearably frustrating not being able to use his power and free himself. Erik thought of those mutation suppressants developed by pharmaceutical companies. He wondered if he was drugged with those. He couldn't really find another explanation, or didn't want to think he had underwent another lobotomy, this time one that has successfully scratched down the area of his brain _responsible_ for his mutation, as the medics have always claimed.

The woman stood still, next to the electric pole, next to Erik. He perceived the steps of another person, walking towards their peers, slowly and determined. Erik gritted his teeth and rested his forehead on the pole.

“Fellow mutants, feast your eyes on this shameful creature.” A female voice called out, firm and powerful, for everyone to hear. “He claimed to be your leader once, but he caused nothing but destruction.” Erik was afraid, utterly so just as his child self never admitted to be. Not realising when he got his motion back, he turned his head as much as he was allowed by the restraints, trying to find the face of the woman speaking to the crowd but only got the blurred image of a gas mask on a body. “This man is the reason we are being hunted today. He began a war he couldn’t stop and now it’s our turn to have him pay. Forget his name now.”

Erik could only feel his heartbeat throbbing in his throat and hear his own heavy breathing. There was a moment of silent uncertainty until the voice said, “Go ahead.”

Moments later, Erik heard the deafening sound of a whip and the pain travelled through his body like a blinding light in the darkness, it was dizzying and made him nothing but lightheaded. Erik didn’t hear himself making any noise the first time but when the second whipping crossed his back he cried loudly and wanted to implore them to stop but his vocal cords didn’t respond. He squirmed and wrestled under the chains, testing and testing again his mutation but the pain was excruciating and weakening. At some point Erik couldn’t get another breath into his lungs between the whipping, and he almost didn't feel the moment he submerged into unconsciousness.


End file.
